Bandstands and free parking to save high street

TOWN centres should offer free shortterm parking and amenities ranging from bandstands to child and elderly day care to help to save our high streets, a minister urged yesterday.

Communities and Local Government Minister Jake Berry also pledged a “robust response” to alarm over shops closing because of business rates and competition from the internet.

He suggested towns and cities should appoint a councillor as “sheriff” for struggling high streets.

He added: “We should be working with local authorities at finding ways of bringing things like gyms, child care, maybe even day care for the elderly, on to the high street.”

He said shopping malls showed what could be done, praising Ashford in Kent where the main street includes art galleries and a bandstand.

The Daily Express has launched a Save Our High Street campaign, urging action to halt the loss of thousands of shops and jobs.

Last week former Iceland boss Bill Grimsey warned that without urgent reform of business rates, some high streets could become “ghost areas”, with closures costing 40,000 jobs.

Now UK Hospitality, which represents pubs, restaurants, hotels and tourist attractions, has revealed 6,000 jobs have been lost this year.

It said this follows the closure of 250 leading brand-owned restaurants.

It added more will follow without changes to the “unjust” tax system.

Group chief executive Kate Nicholls said closure figures have revealed a “bloodbath on our high streets”.

She said business rates and employment costs mean “many pubs, bars and restaurants across the UK face a real risk of disappearing”.

Yet last week Chancellor Philip Hammond appeared to reject the pressure for business rate reform.

He told MPs that a review in 2016 found “no consensus on an alternative” to the “easy to collect, difficult to avoid” property-based tax system.

A Government spokesman said it was introducing more than £10billion of business rate support by 2023.

Sources added that an expert panel would be formed to diagnose problems and solutions for high streets.

Planning reforms will help town centres become more varied between retail, residential and leisure uses. Robbie and wife Ayda with daughter Teddy, who will be a flower girl at the wedding of Eugenie and Jack, right